From Brendan I. Koerner writing at Slate:
Suspected serial killer Derrick Todd Lee was found guilty [Tuesday] of second-degree murder. Eleven members of the Port Allen, La., jury voted for conviction, while a lone dissenter voted to acquit. Aren’t juries in criminal trials supposed to unanimous?
Not in Louisiana or Oregon, where most felony cases require only a supermajority of 10 jurors to convict or acquit. The exceptions in Louisiana are death-penalty cases, as well as trials that use six jurors rather than 12. (The second-degree murder charge that Lee faced carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison.) In Oregon, all murder cases, regardless of the prescribed punishment, still require unanimity.